LinuxQuestions.org - Cron job not working

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Cron job not working - Ubuntu

Good afternoon,

I manage a vbulletin forum board and I would like to schedule a weekly backup using cron. I was following a guide that allowed me to do so, but the cron job will not run.

Guide followed:

http://www.backuphowto.info/how-back...ly-linux-users

I made a txt file on my pc with the following info:

Code:

02 16 * * 4 mysqldump --opt -Q -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD thetz | gzip > /home/usr/public_html/backups/database2_`date '+%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz

I then transferred the txt file to my web space and ran this command

crontab weeklybackup.txt

I then restarted cron
service cron restart

I type contab -l (to show any jobs listed) and the command did show up

Code:

root@thetz:/var/log# crontab -l

02 16 * * 4 mysqldump --opt -Q -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD thetz | gzip > /home/usr/public_html/backups/database2_`date '+%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz

I did verify that the time of the job and the server time matched up... so not sure what's going on. It just doesn't make the backup in the directory.

If I type the command on its own

Code:

mysqldump --opt -Q -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD thetz | gzip > /home/usr/public_html/backups/database2_`date '+%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz

that works perfectly

Can anyone help me out as to why the job did not run? Please let me know if you need more info. I'm very new to linux but I do have some basic DOS experience so typing commands is not that scare :P.

Thanks in advanced.

Welcome to LQ

Since cron uses a limited path, you need to use the whole path to the commands and files.

Kind regards

Quote:

Originally Posted by repo (Post 4149513)

Welcome to LQ

Since cron uses a limited path, you need to use the whole path to the commands and files.

Kind regards

you lost me here.. would you please be able to provide me with an example of what you're talking about?

instead of

Code:

gzip

use

Code:

/bin/gzip

same for

Code:

mysqldump

To find the path use

Code:

whereis mysqldump

Kind regards

Cron log is named /var/log/cron.log. You should browse through it, check messages timed with a moment your command should run.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samotnik (Post 4149525)

Cron log is named /var/log/cron.log. You should browse through it, check messages timed with a moment your command should run.

there isn't any cron.log file, I was looking for that before I posted here. I will try using the full path to gzip and my sql database and report back.

Code:

root@thetz:/var/log# dir

ConsoleKit      daemon.log.3.gz  dpkg.log.1    messages.1      syslog

apache2          daemon.log.4.gz  faillog        messages.2.gz  syslog.1

apt              dbconfig-common  fsck          messages.3.gz  syslog.2.gz

auth.log        debug            kern.log      messages.4.gz  syslog.3.gz

auth.log.1      debug.1          kern.log.1    mysql          syslog.4.gz

auth.log.2.gz    debug.2.gz      kern.log.2.gz  mysql.err      syslog.5.gz

auth.log.3.gz    debug.3.gz      kern.log.3.gz  mysql.log      syslog.6.gz

auth.log.4.gz    debug.4.gz      kern.log.4.gz  mysql.log.1.gz  syslog.7.gz

boot            dmesg            lastlog        mysql.log.2.gz  udev

boot.log        dmesg.0          lpr.log        mysql.log.3.gz  user.log

btmp            dmesg.1.gz      mail.err      mysql.log.4.gz  wtmp

btmp.1          dmesg.2.gz      mail.info      mysql.log.5.gz  wtmp.1

daemon.log      dmesg.3.gz      mail.log      mysql.log.6.gz

daemon.log.1    dmesg.4.gz      mail.warn      mysql.log.7.gz

daemon.log.2.gz  dpkg.log        messages      news

ps -e | grep cron to check if cron is running.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samotnik (Post 4149540)

ps -e | grep cron to check if cron is running.

Code:

root@thetz:/etc# ps -e | grep cron

17104 ?        00:00:00 cron

does that indicate that it's running?

It is. So run crontab -r, then add * * * * * echo `date` >> ~/out to your crontab.
This should add a date string to ~/out file once a minute. It's fairly errorproof command, simply to check, if cron runs jobs at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samotnik (Post 4149563)

GUI= graphical user interface?

I'm doing this all through putty on my windows 7 pc.

please forgive my noobiness

Don't mind. Just add date to cron to see if it works.As you do it, wait some minutes, then do cat ~/out to see, if there are date strings. If it is, then cron is ok, it's something with your command.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samotnik (Post 4149576)

don't think it's working
just tried what you asked me to do and it didn't output any dates

Code:

root@thetz:/etc# crontab -l

* * * * * echo `date` >> ~/outroot@thetz:/etc#

root@thetz:/etc# cat ~/out

root@thetz:/etc#

It's interesting.
Can you add same string to global crontab /etc/crontab. Modify it slightly
* * * * * root echo `date` >> ~/out
Then as usual, wait for some minutes, then check cat ~/out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samotnik (Post 4149614)

It's interesting.
Can you add same string to global crontab /etc/crontab. Modify it slightly
* * * * * root echo `date` >> ~/out
Then as usual, wait for some minutes, then check cat ~/out.

same thing :(

Code:

root@thetz:/etc# crontab -r

root@thetz:/etc# crontab -l

no crontab for root

root@thetz:/etc# crontab testcron.txt

root@thetz:/etc# service cron restart

cron start/running, process 20879

root@thetz:/etc# crontab -l

* * * * * root echo `date` >> ~/outroot@thetz:/etc#

root@thetz:/etc# cat ~/out

root@thetz:/etc# cd /~

bash: cd: /~: No such file or directory

root@thetz:/etc# cd ~

root@thetz:~# dir

out

root@thetz:~# cat out

root@thetz:~# cat out

root@thetz:~#

I really appreciate the follow up

No. This string * * * * * root echo `date` >> ~/out add to /etc/crontab file.